


Smoke Filled Room

by orphan_account



Series: Fathers and Sons [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Altean Lance (Voltron), Angst, Blue Paladin Coran, Family Feels, Gender Issues, Identity Issues, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Red Paladin Alfor, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 09:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7971289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>The genetic material was the same. The antibodies, most notably the ones caused by Altean Flu, were the same. The birthmark on his outer thigh was there. The small scar, so faded Coran would have never seen it if the scan hadn’t noted it, on the seam of his upper lip from when Alurian had begun walking and had an unfortunate tumble into the side of a table (and oh, how Allura had screamed and cried because she’d let Alurian be hurt while she was watching him. Coran had been more worried about her than her brother) was there. </em> <em>Lance was Prince Alurian.</em> </p><p>The Blue Lion sat in that cave for 10,000 years guarding one of the things most important in all the universe to her former paladin and king before, finally, being able to return her precious cargo to where it belongs. Unfortunately everything that happens after that is more complicated than keeping a cryopod running for a few millennia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke Filled Room

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr strikes again. Someone suggested another take on Altean Lance, with him as the son of Coran (and Alfor) and. Well. Here we are. *hand wave* I'm not totally sure where this is going, how it will get there, how often i will update...but I'm pretty sure things are going to be wild. Will probably have some varying PoVs.

Alfor touched the front of the pod Allura was in, eyes clouded over as a sheen of frost crept over the clear surface. Coran could read the pain on his face and felt it as if it were his own. In a way it was his own pain, the bond between them was thrumming with it, adding to the turmoil in his own heart. Not a day had gone by since Allura’s birth that he hadn’t been there for and he loved her as if she was his daughter; seeing her in the pod and knowing what it meant was as painful a thing as he’d ever experienced. 

He and Alfor had discussed this more times than he cared to remember, gone back and forth about what to do if the worst were to happen. They’d already sent the other Paladins away to hide their lions, recorded their memories onto crystals, and now all that remained was protecting the children. 

Alfor turned to him, expression stormy, then nodded towards another pod. “You now.” 

Coran blinked in surprise then shook his head. It wasn’t often he refused his king something but in this case he didn’t see how he could possibly obey. “Absolutely not.” 

Alfor smiled at him, soft and amused. There was a pulse of warmth touched with sadness between them, mixed with something determined and resigned that made Coran’s heart stutter. Hands found his shoulder and blue eyes peered down at him intently.

“Do I need to make you get in?” 

Coran scoffed; he wasn’t as spry as he'd once been but neither was Alfor and he would be damned if he was letting the King 'make' him do anything. “I’d like to see you try. Alurian-”

“I will bring Alurian and put him in a pod.” Alfor interrupted, hands squeezing his shoulders firmly. Coran regarded him for a moment, pressing against the threads that bound them together, then reached up to brush the other’s hands away. 

“I will get Alurian.” If something went wrong...if something happened Coran knew it would be better for him to out there than Alfor. He was expendable, their king was not. “You should get into a pod before it’s too late.” 

They had sent Alurian away during the initial evacuation, not wanting him in the castle during Zarkon’s inevitable assault. Allura was older and capable, and had dug in her heels fiercely when they tried to move her to safety, but Alurian was only two and hadn’t been able to make such a protest. It was...painful to be separated from the young prince, Coran had never imagined such an extended absence from Alurian happening so early, but then Zarkon’s betrayal hadn’t been a possibility they had ever considered until it was happening.

Alfor smiled again, fleetingly, and Coran already knew what was coming but he didn’t want to hear it. “A king does not abandon his people in their time of need.” 

It was the expected response, King Alfor cared deeply for his people and was above all else a leader and ruler. It was nothing new, Coran had grown up with the man, been his advisor for a great many years, stood at his side at his wedding, fought and flown with him, been privileged enough to be the third person to hold Allura, and again stood beside him at the Queen’s funeral. He knew Alfor better than anyone else could ever hope to. He’d known long before now that if the worst happened this was a man who would put the planet and the people before his own life. 

He had thought that was something he accepted and yet the moment chafed like an ill-fitting tunic. There wasn’t a point in arguing about it, Alfor was almost as stubborn as Allura tended to be, which was saying something, but he fully intended to anyway.

Never during their planning had *this* outcome, him entering cryosleep with the children, been spoken of. He wouldn’t have agreed to it, would have suggested one of the other paladins so he could remain where he always had, beside his king. Was this not why they had done the memory scans, kept them carefully updates as things changed and they learned more? 

At least he had thought that was the reason. Now he suspected that it had been an illusion and that Alfor had been set upon this course all along. That would have been like him, making plans without his advisor and playing innocent. 

“Yet you expect me to abandon you now?” 

“I expect you,” Alfor said slowly. “To protect the castle, the lions, and Allura and Alurian, everything that is most dear to me, if I cannot. There is no one else in the universe I trust to do so.” 

He felt it, the trust, a warm wave that rushed over him in a tingling wave and wrapped around him and an echo of things unsaid: _ I want you protected as well. _

It was comforting and it also felt like defeat. Alfor had always had a way with words when it came to swaying people to his cause and Coran had never been immune to it. 

“I will go with you to retrieve Alurian, at least.” He was trying to strike a bargain, buy himself time, but Alfor shook his head as his eyes drifted to some point beyond Coran. 

“I suspect if you don’t enter the pod now I won’t be able to get you to do so.” His hands moved, brushed against Coran’s lightly. “Do you not trust me to protect our son on my own? Am I so incompetent without you?” 

Coran scoffed, turning away, refusing to even dignify such a thing with a response. A hand settled between his shoulder blades, an achingly familiar gesture for moments when decorum was paramount but contact was wanted, and pushed him forward towards an open pod. It was a light touch, a lighter push, but it was insistent and came with an impression of a thought.  _ Do this for me. _

He stepped inside then turned to face Alfor, frowning severely. “If you aren’t here when we wake up I won’t forgive you.” 

Alfor’s skin crinkled around his eyes then he leaned in, touching his forehead to Coran’s briefly. A kiss followed, even briefer, and then Alfor stepped away, tapping the side of the pod. The pod’s lid swept into place with a soft click and the air went cold, breath misting in front of him. A whooshing sound filled his ears and, as he met Alfor’s eyes, everything-

He stumbled out of the pod, joints stiff and the air in his lungs burning and cutting like he’d swallowed hail or inhaled the acid gas from Altea’s poisonous hot springs. He knew something was missing before he was even fully awake, felt the emptiness where Alfor should have been, but swallowed it down. 

He straightened up, eyes sweeping the room and quickly taking everything in. Allura, five beings with very small round ears, and...that was it. No other pods, no other people. 

He caught Allura’s eyes, saw the darkness in them, and nodded. She turned back to the console she was working on, brows furrowing, and he returned his attention to the other five in the room.

Now was not the time.

\---

Coran ran the scans twice, a third time, a fourth time but they call came back the same as the first time. He’d had all of the paladins submit for medical scans once the castle was back under their control, Sendak subdued, and Lance’s healing started. His intention had just been to check for injuries they might have been hiding or unaware of but what had come back was…

What he was seeing didn’t make sense. He understood all the words, all the readings, the genetic markers and what they meant but he couldn’t comprehend how any of it was possible. Worse he wasn’t sure which scan was more alarming: Shiro’s, Keith’s, or-

A soft sigh made him look up from his screen, hand poised to banish the information before him before anyone else could see it. Coran watched, relaxing some, as Shiro shifted in his sleep. The Black Paladin was leaning against the healing chamber Lance was in, had been there so long he’d fallen asleep that way, but Coran knew better than to try and rouse him to return to his own chambers. Shiro refused to stop looking over Lance, insisting he needed to see his self-appointed mission all the way through, and no one had been able to dissuade him from that. 

Coran was sure he felt guilty. He could relate. Lance was hurt because he’d noticed what Coran hadn’t and, rather than trying to protect himself, he’d put his life on the line to save him. In that first moment, when he’d seen Lance sprawled across the ground like a children’s toy with it’s crystal reserves run down, his heart had leapt into his throat and his stomach had dropped. The guilt had followed swiftly. 

It was bad enough that these...children, and that was how Coran saw them all for better or for worse, had stepped in as Paladins of Voltron, were willingly placing themselves on the front line of a war that Coran’s people had failed to end 10,000 years ago. He couldn’t imagine how it had come to this point, where he was one of the last of his kind, the Galra had taken over most of the universe, that Alfor and Alurian were gone. 

That was what had hurt the most. The loss of Alfor was like an open wound in his chest, pulling and aching at all times and any time he felt it might have been dulling or healing over there was something that caught at the edges and tore it anew. But Alurian...that was an emotion Coran could not begin to describe. He would have thought losing Alfor was as bad as things could get but...he had perspective now. 

If being without Alfor was a wound that wouldn’t heal then knowing Alurian was dead was missing a part of himself, forever raw and in pain with no hope of healing. He woke up and thought of him, wandered the castle and remembered him, breathed and ached.  

As far as he could tell Alfor had never even returned to the castle after leaving to get their son but that was all they knew. What had happened to the king and the prince was information they had yet to find. In fact accessing the data steams out there, very carefully piggybacking off the Galra signals, had brought up nothing of Altea. It was as if it, and it’s people, had been completely wiped from history by Zarkon and the Galra. There were places they could go, people they could talk to, but for the moment they were in the dark. Allura wanted to know but Coran was less eager. He couldn’t imagine what good it would do to know how they had died; his lover and their son were gone, 10,000 years in the past. 

What would learning that the Galra had slaughtered them or kept them prisoner until they’d died do to fix that? That the Red Lion had been in the Galra’s possession was more than enough to make Coran feel sick to his stomach. 

He was, he supposed, going numb in a way. Not in a way that made things less terrible or helped him breathe easier, but in a way that let him continue on as best as he could. 

He buried himself in the training of the new paladins and being there for Allura, reached out to help them with their homesickness when he could, gave them their own things to focus on, and tried not to feel anything at all. He smiled and told stories of a people it seemed the universe didn’t remember, choose his words carefully to not pull open the wounds or upset Allura, and so far things had been falling into place.

Until the scans. 

Until the castle insisted on updating the medical file of Prince Alurian, a file Coran had gone into and marked as ‘deceased’ shortly after waking up, and no matter how many times he tried to find where the error might be nothing changed. He’d looked at the programing strings, pulled out wires and swapped the smaller memory and power crystals, gone in and compared the readings line by line himself and...there was no error. 

The genetic material was the same. The antibodies, most notably the ones caused by Altean Flu, were the same. The birthmark on his outer thigh was there. The small scar, so faded Coran would have never seen it if the scan hadn’t noted it, on the seam of his upper lip from when Alurian had begun walking and had an unfortunate tumble into the side of a table (and oh, how Allura had screamed and cried because she’d let Alurian be hurt while she was watching him. Coran had been more worried about her than her brother) was there. 

Lance was Prince Alurian. 

Coran looked up again, staring at Lance’s slack face for what felt like the hundredth time since the fourth scan had come back the same. He could, if he tried, see familiar things. The thin sharp features did remind him of Alfor, and Allura. He didn’t see any of himself there but he’d often joked that Alurian was rather cruel to end up looking nothing like his carrier. There were obvious differences, Altean traits that were missing, but they were shapeshifters. Changing to blend into their surroundings was not uncommon. 

His first thought was a clone. Some trick of the Galra to get their claws on Voltron and infiltrate the castle but that reasoning didn’t hold up to scrutiny. There was no way the Galra could have known the Blue Lion would choose Lance; it wasn’t someone that could be guaranteed because of genetics. If he was aware he’d have some power over the castle, and Voltron, Lance hadn’t mentioned it or attempted to use it. There was, even further, no indication the Galra had known the Blue Lion was on Earth. Surely they didn’t have clones on every inhabitable planet in the universe in hopes one would stumble across a lion. And to be lucky enough to be connected to the other Paladins, one of whom had ended up a Galra prisoner? 

No, it didn’t make sense. There were just too many ifs and holes in such a plan. Even if he assumed Lance was some manner of sleeper agent, unaware of his true purpose, it didn’t work. 

But the alternatives…

But. The Blue Lion had been on Earth. It had found its way there somehow and lain dormant, waiting, on the same planet Lance had grown up on. There was-

He pushed away from the table, holding up a calming hand when Shiro jerked awake. His hand was glowing, had fired to life almost immediately and curled into a fist; gray eyes stared at Coran, blank and unseeing, for a long stretch and then Shiro blinked and lowered his hand. 

“Sorry Coran.” Shiro mumbled, slumping back against Lance’s pod. 

“Quite alright.” Coran said, making himself smile disarmingly. “We have had a rough go of it lately, it’s normal to be jumpy.” 

Shiro sighed, twisting around to look up at Lance. “Yeah. A rough go.” 

Coran’s smile dropped, gaze returning to the Blue Paladin as his guilt slithered through his stomach once again. Was it terrible, he wondered, that he felt so much worse about Lance’s injuries now, after the scans? Felt as if he had failed in his duty not just to protect the lions, and thus their pilots, but to protect his-

“I think some food is in order.” Coran declared, tearing his gaze away and tugging at his mustache. “I’ll bring you something back.” 

“Oh.” Shiro said faintly. “Thanks. I’d...love that.”

Coran chuckled as he walked away; he was aware of what the paladin's thought of his cooking. He spent a not inconsiderable amount of time thinking of more terrible combinations, rather enjoying the way they struggled to stay polite and not 'offend' him. 

\---

The walk down the hangar was both the longest of his life and the shortest. Scenarios, possibilities, a gnawing hope in his belly he didn’t want to be there all blended together, beat against the inside of his skull, dragged him down. And yet he was there before he could change his mind, standing in front of the silent Blue Lion. 

The silence was still strange. Once upon a time he couldn’t get her to be quiet because they’d been so closely linked, closer than any of the other paladins and their lions. She’d been a constant presence in his mind, nearly as strong as the bond he shared with Alfor, for years. He had known that would change eventually, that new paladins would take their place, but he’d never imagined it would be so quiet. There was something there, a faint spark of a connection, but it wasn’t anything like it had once been. 

He hadn’t visited before. Lance was her pilot now and it was no longer his place. And, perhaps, he missed her presence and didn’t want to dwell on it. 

He was comforted by there being no barrier or attempt to keep him from coming closer when he strode forward. He pressed a hand to the smooth metal of her front paw, felt the warm thrum of life under his palm. 

“Hello old friend. Do you know something I should know?” 

A moment of silence, as if she was considering what response to give him, then a soft click the lion lowered her head a bit and there was a soft clicking sound. He turned, breath catching at the sight of light streaming from overhead, coming from the lion’s eyes. It came together and consolidated into a blue tinted holographic image of King Alfor. He wasn’t alone, two women in hooded robes stood with him, one on each side: the Yellow and Green paladins. The Red Lion, Alfor’s lion, stood behind them, tall and silent against a backdrop of mountains and cloudless skin. Alfor was holding a cloth covered bundle against his chest; Coran could see a small hand poking out, balled up and hanging free. 

Coran recognized the terrain as the moon they’d hidden Alurian on. 

The image started moving and Alfor’s voice rang out, echoing off the walls of the hangar. He breathed in sharply, a chill running up his spine, and blinked his suddenly burning eyes. He had, on a few occasions, spoken to the holo-memory of Alfor but there was something different between that echo and this one. Maybe it was that the memory of Alfor tried hard to please him with the memories and images it conjured and that there was something sanitized about the experience. 

Maybe it was that this recording sounded desperate. 

It took a moment for him to move past the voice and hear the words. 

“-not for my sake, but for Coran. You must keep Alurian safe.” 

The image flickered and changed to one of the cockpit. The pilot's seat was gone and there was a cryopod taking up what little floor space there was. All of the lions were equipped in such a way that the chairs could be sent below the cockpit and the cryopod summoned up into it for the purposes of emergency healing. They weren't meant to be used long term but as he watched the image he ran through what he knew and came to the conclusion that if a Lion was to divert all power, all of their magic...essentially everything they had and then some more, that perhaps long term functionality was possible. 

How long he couldn't say but...it was possible. 

The only thing that distinguished the image as a video and not a still was the soft blue light pulsing from the cryopod. Everything else, all of the lights, the control panels, and readouts, were black. 

**Author's Note:**

> In this story Alteans have 1 gender, with everyone being capable of carrying or siring children. While everyone has certain basic traits that they can't change (limbs, eyes, basic humanoid shape) height, weight, genitalia, and breasts are among the things they can change. Altean children typically go through a 'exploratory' period before settling into a form they like. So some Alteans might have penises or vaginas or both or neither (a way to pass waste, yes, but no external sex organs) or some other...things going on down there. Whatever floats their boat.
> 
> The Galra will operate on ABO rules (Alphas, Omegas, Betas, with Alphas being sires, Omegas carriers, and Betas both, with limited acknowledgement of male vs female traits or, infact, differences between the dynamics. They're much more interested in their caste system, with military, druid, citizen, and royal castes determining where a person stands in society) and humans...I have not decided yet. We shall see.


End file.
